1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and its processing method for recording a photographed image as a digital image and reproducing the recorded digital image, an image file format, and a storage medium.
2. Related Background Art
A digital electronic still camera has been recently developed which converts an video signal into a digital signal and records the digital signal in a PCMCIA recording medium such as a semiconductor memory card or compact hard disk. The digital recording medium is constituted so as to be able to read data with a personal computer.
As a conventional art for video data to be generated by the digital electronic still camera, there is the format described in xe2x80x9cIC Memory Card Line DSC 68 Pin Standard for Digital Still Cameraxe2x80x9d issued by JEIDA (Japan Electronic Industry Development Association).
In the case of this standard, the PCMCIA recording medium is used as a MS-DOS-compatible block device and a video file and an audio file are recorded on a medium as files. Moreover, additional pieces of information related to an image such as photographed date, photographing mode, and photographing condition are recorded in each file.
Moreover, to reproduce video information or an audio file recorded in the medium on a personal computer, it is possible for a user to select a file to be reproduced by using functions of DOS and thereby, reading through the information for files present in a specific subdirectory and displaying the information on a computer screen.
In this case, however, pieces of information to be understood by DOS are restricted to a file name, a file generated date, and a file size. That is, because these pieces of information are recorded in a continuous region on a medium in accordance with the directory constitution rules of DOS, it is possible to restore the pieces of information at a relatively high speed. Moreover, by making the file generated date coincide with the photographed date, it is possible to display the information which can be more easily understood by a user.
In the case of the above file control, the official gazettes of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 5-252474 and 6-233225 disclose recording an image by including a character showing that continuous photographing was performed, a number attached to every group of continuously photographed images, and serial numbers for continuous photographing in a file name as a method of recording a plurality of images continuously photographed so that the images can be identified as one set.
Moreover, the present applicant proposes a system for successively attaching file numbers to file names without duplication as long as the same photographing apparatus is used in Japanese Patent Application No. 8-273494.
FIG. 15 shows file names according to the file control system. xe2x80x9cIMGxe2x80x9d is attached to three characters at the head of a file name and a file number currFileNo using a five-digit numeral which increases one by one every photographing is attached to the next five characters. The file number currFileNo is stored in a camera.
When recording media are replaced, the maximum file number FileNoFound among the file numbers attached to file names of the files stored in a newly-set recording medium is compared with file numbers stored in the camera. Then, when currFileNo is larger than FileNoFound, the currFileNo is directly used. However, when currFileNo is not larger than the FileNoFound, FileNoFound+1 is stored in the camera and used.
In this case, when the most significant value in a five-digit numeral is xe2x80x9c0,xe2x80x9d xe2x80x9c0xe2x80x9d is replaced with symbol xe2x80x9c_xe2x80x9d so that it can be easily seen. Because three characters serving as an extension are a JPEG-compressed image file, xe2x80x9cJPGxe2x80x9d is attached. For files, every 50 file numbers are arranged in another directory so that they can be easily retrieved. In this case, files having file numbers 3332 to 3350 are arranged in the directory of xe2x80x9cCTGxe2x80x940066.CTGxe2x80x9d and files having file numbers 3351 to 3400 are arranged in the directory of xe2x80x9cCTG-0067.CTGxe2x80x9d.
FIGS. 16A to 16D show image structures when photographed in the panorama mode. Though images not shown in FIGS. 16A to 16D are obtained through single photographing, it is impossible to decide from the file name whether they are photographed in the panorama mode. The information for a position for constituting a panorama is recorded in a file.
As described above, the prior art has a problem that it is impossible to distinguish between photographing sequences of photographing as a group and single photographing by only a file name because file name systems are different between a group of continuous photographing and single photographing or a file name whose group cannot be decided is used.
The present invention is made to solve the above problems and its object is to make it possible to display the information for images recorded in a recording medium for a user at a high speed.
An embodiment of the present invention provides an image processing apparatus comprising:
first assignment means for assigning the information for specifying an image;
second assignment means for assigning the information showing constituting a group to a group of images constituted with a plurality of images; and
storage means for storing the information assigned by the first assignment means and the second assignment means as file names of images.